Ice Hockey—Dribbling the puck down the ice, defending players have covered the teammates of the dribbler to prevent a successful pass. At the same time the defense is alert to stop the dribble.
Golf
Golf, like tennis, is a favorite outdoor game. It is essentially an open weather game, but it may be played all the year around. It is deservedly popular because it combines cross-country walking, with all of its many benefits, and a peculiar skill with a variety of implements or clubs.
Anybody—woman, girl or child in her teens—who has perseverance can make a golfer. No great strength is necessary. The only requisites are a good eye, persistence, a good teacher and the facilities of a course. Fortunate is the person who at an early age learned his or her golf from a competent instructor, and fortunate is the person who has the facilities of a golf course either public or private.
The standard golf course is of eighteen holes. The average hole is 300 yards or more, although the distances usually vary from 125 yards to 600 yards and of a total length of upward of 6,000 yards. Should a player play straight over the course it will be seen that a single round would usually require a walk of four miles. Play is started from a driving green—a leveled mound of earth. The ball is teed-up on the driving green by placing a pinch of fine sand on the green and the ball upon it so that it is a half inch or more above the surface. The driver, a wooden club with a heavy head or sole, is used and the ball sent with a full stroke as far on its way to the hole as possible. Usually the space immediately in front of the tee for 50 or 75 yards is rough ground, terminating with a bunker and sand pit or some other form of hazard such as a brook, etc. Then comes the fair green, a more or less level grassy stretch extending to within a few yards of the putting green, which contains the hole or cup. On either side of the fair green is the rough, which is long grass, sand, water and other hazards. Usually the putting green is surrounded by traps such as sand pits, bunkers or mounds of earth and water hazards, while often a brook trickles through the fair green. The object of the game is to negotiate the course in the fewest number of strokes.
The drive from the tee should carry one over the first rough and over the first bunker or trap and well on to the fair green. On the fair green, if the hole is a long one and the lie of the ball favorable, the club used to send the ball again on its way is the brassie, which is a wooden club quite similar to the driver. It has a wooden head or sole, but the bottom of the head is plaited with a strip of brass to protect the wood, as the ball must be picked up off the ground without the aid of teeing. The drive for a girl should net a hundred yards, more or less, and the brassie stroke about the same. Often the lie of the ball on the fair green is not favorable to a brassie stroke, in which case an iron club with a pitch to the head of the club with which to loft the ball is used. This may be the mid-iron, the cleek, the mashie-niblic, or the mashie. The last named club is sometimes called the lofter and is used mainly for approaching the hole from off the green from distances of a hundred yards or less. The putting green is a very well levelled surface of extremely fine grass in which the cap is sunk. Putting greens vary from very fine levels likened to billiard tables to undulating slopes. The club to use on this green is the putter.
When a player is unfortunate enough to send the ball into the rough or long grass, a heavy iron club such as the mashie-niblic or mid-iron is used. And when the ball is sent into the sand or in a bunker the niblic is played. This club has a very heavy sole with a decided pitch for lofting and sends the ball high into the air out of trouble and on to the fair green when the stroke is played properly.
In learning to putt, the game of Clock Golf, found on most good courses, is a great help for it means that a girl may get diversion while grasping the fundamentals. The first question in putting, as with every club, is to establish the most efficient grip. There are two classes of grips—the overlapping grip and the regular or two-handed grip. The former is the more modern grip and is, I believe, the more efficient. The left hand is placed nearly at the end of the club. The right hand is so placed that the little finger of the right overlaps the first finger of the left, and the left thumb is almost entirely covered by the right hand. This grip brings the wrists closer together than the two-handed method and so produces greater harmony of action in the swing.
With the grip established, the next fundamental is the stance and address. Draw an imaginary line from the ball to the hole; stand behind the line with heels together—feet at right angles to each other, the left foot pointing toward the hole; the player stands bending slightly from the hips with arms stretched down full length; the right elbow points to the right thigh; the left points toward the hole; the club swings as a pendulum; the sole of the club addresses the ball at right angles to the imaginary line. The player’s eye should be right above the ball. The secret of the putt is two-fold—the swing, which should be in direct proportion to the distance (and state of the green) from the hole, and the impact of club and ball at a perfect right angle. The follow through should be along the imaginary line still preserving the right angle. With the fundamentals established, practice will develop astonishingly accurate putting.